


Him.

by mightypocketcow



Series: Smosh Writing Week 2019 [5]
Category: Smosh
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Based on a real life experience, Bullying, Harassment, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Past Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts, this is a mess but i love it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-20 13:36:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19993090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mightypocketcow/pseuds/mightypocketcow
Summary: Joven knows love at first sight isn't real.  But love at first glance of Wes' Star Wars binder might be.Day 6 Submission for Smosh Writing Week 2019.





	Him.

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warning for this One-Shot: There is reference to past trauma, homophobic bullying/abuse/violence, and implied past suicide attempts. Please, please do not read this if that will trigger you.  
> If you need someone to talk to, please don't hesitate to message me on my tumblr @ authorpocketcow. Please take care of yourself!

Joshua Ovenshire does not believe in love at first sight. Not at all.

He isn't even sure he believes in love.

After all the horrible experiences he's had, he's convinced that love doesn't exist and that even if it did, he didn't deserve it. Why would he?

That's the attitude he went into his university career with. Part of him knew that it was foolish to give up on love so early in life. He's only 19 after all. Hell, he can barely grow a proper beard; it still gets all patchy when he doesn't shave.

But the horror he went through after the world discovered he was gay in his junior year of high school? That wasn't worth going through again. He doesn't care how good people say love is and feels, he will never experience that level of self-hatred and harassment again. It absolutely tore him apart, and it wasn't worth experiencing that abuse again just to have a boyfriend.

The only person who stuck by him throughout everything was his best friend Mari Takahashi. It was her who talked him down from making the worst and last decision of his life, and her who convinced him to seek professional help, and her who still loves him unconditionally. If she wasn't seeing Peter, he would just bite the bullet and marry her--platonically, of course, but it would get his family off his back about his sexuality.

"Hey, Joven." A soft voice startles him out of the trance he'd worked himself into; he looks up from his lap to see Mari herself standing next to his chair. "You nervous?"

"A little. But we'll have Psych together this afternoon, so I guess I'll survive until then."

"Do you know anyone that's going to be in your first class--what is it again?"

"Intro to Applied Physics." He sighs. "This is what I get for choosing to get a Bachelor's in Education."

Mari smiles at him. "You will make an amazing teacher, Joven. I know you will. You just have to get through university first."

"And you with being a psychologist; that's a perfect fit for you."

She blushes slightly. "You really think so?"

"Absolutely." Peter answers for Joven; apparently, he was standing behind Joven for a while, and he just didn't notice. "You're great with people, babe. You care a lot and you're really smart. It's a great choice."

Joven nods, and Peter grins at him. 

Joven gets along well with Peter, and the closeness of the two of them still occasionally surprises Joven. When Mari first started seeing Peter in Senior year, Joven hated the man. Peter was taking his best friend away from him, and he needed her. How dare he be so rude as to take away his Mari?

But that was before he even really talked to the guy. When Mari introduced them properly, Joven was still skeptical. But before their first conversation was even over, Joven knew he had been selfish and ridiculous. Peter was a great guy and clearly cared for Mari a lot; why would Joven be so rude as to take that happiness away from his Mari?

An alarm beeped on Joven's phone, and he looked down; it was ten minutes until his Physics class started. He stood up. "I have to go... I'll see you guys later."

"Good luck!" They both say sincerely before finding another place in the library to sit until their own classes.

Joven was completely alone. And that frankly terrified him. He hated being alone, he hated being with his own thoughts, he hated not having anyone to talk to, he hated having to keep everything to himself, he hated being by himself...

"Look, it's my favourite Joshua!" Yet again, a familiar voice breaks through his thoughts. He looked up from the clean new notebook he'd set in front of himself on the desk, and saw two friendly faces from his second high school's Gay-Straight Alliance sliding down the row to sit with him. 

"Look, it's my favourite Matthew!" Joven quips back with a grin. 

Sohinki winks at him, plopping into the seat on his right. "You'd best make sure the professor doesn't hear you say that. His name is Matt too." He teases, as Boze slides into the seat on the other side of him. 

"There's no way he'll be a better Matt than you, Sohinki." Joven bats his eyelashes at him flirtatiously, and Sohinki pretends to swoon.

"You stealing my boyfriend, Joven?" Boze cocks an eyebrow, smirking at the man in question. "I'll fight you for him, for real."

"You can have him! You scare me." Joven tosses his hands up in surrender, making Sohinki and Boze laugh.

"I'm not worth fighting for? Fine." Sohinki scoffs in a fake offended tone. "I see how it is. My favourite Joshua is now Josh Brolin."

"Fine. Take your Cables and your Thanoses. You're not my type anyways." 

"What _is_ your type, Joven?" Boze asks, leaning on her hand to stare at him. "I've never actually asked you."

"I don't know, anybody that isn't Sohinki?" They all laugh again, and before Boze gets a chance to ask again the professor enters the classroom. Most of the students quiet themselves immediately -- Joven notices with surprise that the room filled up fast when he was lost in thought -- and he doesn't blame them. The professor was tall and bulky, an intimidating-looking man with an even more intimidating resume. The syllabus said he went by the name of Dr. Matt Raub, a man well-known in the field of physics. 

"That's Dr. Raub?" Sohinki whispers. "I thought he'd be some old man, a bespectacled, gangly-looking nerd who needs about 10 more sandwiches to not be underweight. This dude is..." Sohinki sighs. "Kinda hot."

"Careful, sweetheart, your bisexuality is showing." Boze says casually. "You're right though. I've read some of his papers and the man's a genius; I didn't expect him to look like that."

Joven suddenly felt very out-of-place; Boze and Sohinki were both taking actual physics-related majors. Sohinki was in some sort of engineering program (Joven really tried to remember, but he couldn't), and Boze was double-majoring in Mathematics and Physics. He felt rather silly, taking such a high level physics course just to be an elementary school teacher. 

Dr. Raub hadn't started teaching yet, in fact he was still setting up his projector, so Joven looks around the room nervously as he tuned out Boze and Sohinki's whispering. He wondered what some of these other peoples' majors were. He guesses that the group of girls sitting at the other end of the row giggling and looking at their phones together may have in fact been lost, but he only thinks that briefly before chastising himself. Who was he to judge appearances? They might be physics majors just like Boze. Or maybe they were in education like him.

He looks up and down the lower few rows slowly. He had sat a bit closer to the back to not draw much attention to himself, and he was perfectly okay with his seat. It was in a great position, right in the middle of the lecture hall both in rows and columns, to see and hear Dr Raub and his powerpoint presentation. It was a good choice, honestly.

And then he sees the man sitting right in the front row on the Professor's right, and Joven's heart stops, and he suddenly regrets his choice in not sitting front-and-centre, and he regrets not wanting to draw attention to himself, because he really wants this man to look at him, because he could only really see the side of his face from here as the man digs through his bag for something, but his dyed silver hair was really nice and Joven was willing to place bets that it was really soft and nice to touch and he bets that his lips are probably just as soft and he wonders what the man tastes like and wonders what it would feel like to put his hands on those cheekbones and--

Oh. That's what his type is.

The man looks up from his bag briefly, pulling out a binder. He places it in front of him and puts his bag back on the ground before opening it up, still not looking up enough for Joven to see his full face.

Even from four rows back, Joven can tell that the binder is covered in little Stormtroopers, and his heart melts right then and there, and he wants to run to the front of the room and propose marriage to this man.

He gives his head a tiny shake, and looks back up at the Professor, but as Dr. Raub is finishing up, Joven's eyes wander back over to the man with the dyed silver hair. As he does so, the man also looks up, glancing around the room.

Joven sees his face now; his features are gentle, almost angelic in nature, and his eyes are likely brown with how dark they seem from where Joven is. His pale skin looks flawless and soft, and... God, those cheekbones made him want to fall over.

He realizes with a start that the man is looking right at him now, and he flushes deeply before looking back down at his notebook, curling his fingers into a fist in his lap. A few moments pass before he glances back up, and the man is looking at his Stormtrooper binder again.

"Dude... are you in love with that Stormtrooper binder or what?" Sohinki whispers, and Joven looks over at him with an unconvincingly surprised expression.

"What? Oh, yeah, I saw that, yeah, super neat, cool hair-- _binder_ , cool binder..."

Sohinki narrows his eyes, nudging Boze and tilting his chin at Joven teasingly. "I think we found Joven's type."

"What? No, shut up!" He groans.

"Bitch who?" Boze whispers excitedly.

"Dude down there with the Stormtrooper binder." Sohinki subtly points at the silver-haired man with his thumb. "I think Joven's in love, but I don't know if it's with Dude's hair or Dude's binder."

Before Joven can defend himself, Dr. Raub projects his voice to the entire lecture hall. "Alright, folks. It's time to learn about Applied Physics..."

The entire class, all Joven can think about is the man up in the front row. He really, really wants to talk to him, to learn more about him, to become friends with him... to be more than friends... to hold him... to know what it feels like to kiss him, to tangle his fingers in that silver hair...

But something stops him. Something resembling fear, stemming from his experiences in Junior year of high school.

He was dating this girl... her name was Kate. She was sweet, mind you. Nothing that happened was her fault. None of this was her fault. She was very nice to everyone, and if Joven was into women he definitely could have married her.

He also had a massive, massive crush on this guy... his name was Amra, but everybody called him 'Flitz'. He was funny and confident and really, really smart. 

One day, someone found a private notebook of Joven's that he had left in the cafeteria while he went to the washroom. Someone had gone through his bag to find it. He still doesn't know who it was; just that when he got back, it was gone, and the next day everyone--including Flitz, and unfortunately Kate--knew about his romantic feelings for Flitz. 

It was hell. The teachers found out, someone told his parents... his grandmother even found out. Nearly everyone either abused and harassed him -- he was beat up behind the bleachers on multiple occasions, and his locker frequently had slurs written on it when he got to school -- or just completely ignored him whenever he spoke. The teachers wouldn't do anything and he sank into a horrible depression. Even Kate wouldn't speak to him. She just burst into tears every time she saw him.

Only Mari, who already knew he was gay anyways, stood by him. She stopped him from taking matters into his own hands, and she brought him to people who would help... and they did. They taught him that life was worth living, that things aren't always as bad as he thinks they are, that he could get past this with effort from him and help from people around him.

Eventually, his mother rolled around to the idea; he strongly suspects, to this day, that it was a combination of his hospital stay and possibly an angry lecture from Mari that brought her to her senses. His father still despised him and despised his 'lifestyle choices', but his mother let him transfer high schools for senior year. The other high school he went to had a Gay-Straight Alliance, and that's where he met Sohinki and Boze. And Mari transferred, too--that's where Mari met Peter, a trans boy who fell head-over-heels for her as soon as they met. Joven never paid much attention to Peter until Mari started dating him, but then again he tried not to talk to the boys much. 

He was scared... scared of the same thing happening here, where he finally almost feels like he belongs. Mari assured him it wouldn't but he couldn't make himself break down his walls. Not again. 

He had basically no choice with Sohinki, though. Boze took a liking to Joven instantly, and wherever Boze went was where Sohinki went. Those two had been attached at the hip since they were toddlers, having grown up as neighbours; Sohinki's younger brother had said everyone knew they would end up together even before they did. 

Joven looks over at the two of them as he thinks about it, and notices they're holding hands on top of the desk. Boze is taking notes (of what, Joven had no idea; Dr. Raub was simply going over the syllabus) and Sohinki looks a bit like he had zoned out, too. Boze glances over at Joven, and grins at him before going back to her notes.

Joven counts himself pretty lucky at this point... He doesn't know where he would be without Mari, and Peter, and Boze, and Sohinki, and Courtney Miller and Olivia Sui, the Junior year (they must be seniors now, he notes mentally) lesbian couple from the GSA who seemed to have pseudo-adopted Joven as their 'baby gay', as Courtney put it. 

Why, then, with so much support and so many wonderful queer friends and cheerleaders, is he still so afraid to talk to other boys?

"Just go talk to him before he leaves!" Sohinki says, poking Joven playfully in the arm as they stand up, gathering their things. "This campus is too damn huge for you to catch up with him after."

"I can't just go up to someone I don't know!" They start sliding out of their row, and Joven notices -- not that he's specifically looking or anything -- that the silver-haired man is still in his seat, fiddling with something. "That's not how things work in university, you can't just go up and make friends like you did in elementary school..."

"Why the hell not?" Boze cuts in simply. "That's kinda how life works, Joven. Just introduce yourself. Tell him you like his binder."

"I--"

"Just do it!" They tell him in unison, and Sohinki gives him a little shove towards the front of the room before he and Boze turn and walk away.

Joven gulps as he looks at their retreating backs before he turns and, taking a deep breath, walks towards the front row. He makes it to right in front of the man, who still doesn't look up from the mechanical pencil he's putting lead into.

"Hi." He squeaks, and the man looks up. His eyes are, in fact, brown. Brown eyes have never looked so beautiful on a person before. Joven stutters over his words for a moment before he continues. "I, uh, I like your binder..."

"Thank you!" The man smiles, and Joven's legs feel like jelly. "My brother got it for me when I told him I was going into Education, he said that any good teacher should have cool Star Wars stuff. Mind you, he's eleven, so he knows what he's talking about."

Joven chuckles. "Oh, I'm in Education too! And yeah, eleven-year-olds always know what they're talking about. Just ask eleven-year-old me."

The man laughs -- a real, solid, throwing-his-head-back laugh -- and Joven's stomach turns into butterflies. "That's relatable. I was like that as a kid too." He sweeps his stuff into his bag quickly, and stands to face Joven, swinging his bag over his shoulder. "Sorry, I didn't catch your name?"

"Oh, sorry. It's Joshua. You can call me Joven though."

"Joven... well, that's an interesting nickname. I'm Wes." He sticks out his hand with a grin, and as Joven takes it, he has a moment where he suddenly believes in a higher power, and that this particular higher power is a friend to the gays, because the man--Wes--is wearing a hand-made rainbow bracelet.

"That's... I really like that bracelet." Joven blurts as he shakes Wes' hand.

"Oh, this? Yeah..." Wes smiles softly. "My aunt made it for me when I came out of the closet."

Yep. That higher power is definitely a friend to the gays. Or at least to Joven.

Maybe Joshua Ovenshire could believe in love at first sight... if it meant him. If it meant Wes.

**Author's Note:**

> This is quite heavily, but not perfectly, based on how I met one of my best friends in my first year of University. I love that gal with all my soul.  
> Be safe and healthy, and have a great day!


End file.
